[Special guest] The elephant in the room

[ClCl]

Wooo! Now we know about why Batyr was created, where it gets its inspiration and what Batyr does for young people and mental health stigma lets get to the next question....

Why don’t we talk about the elephant in the room?

[FootyFan26]

Never heard of them before.

[ClCl]

Hey @N1ghtW1ng and @FootyFan26 Thanks so much for joining us tonight

[safari93]

Why don’t we talk about the elephant in the room?

Well mental health stigma is still an issue that affects the way people talk about mental health. There might be more acceptance of issues like depression and anxiety, but people still use terms like 'crazy' and 'psycho' to describe people with mental illness and create false correlations between mental illness and violence. Plus, people still think in very one-dimensional terms about less common mental health issues, like OCD or eating disorders

[N1ghtW1ng]

That elephant sounds awesome.

Why don't we talk about the elephant in the room? Probably because of the stigma around mental health.

[redhead]

Why don’t we talk about the elephant in the room?

In my experience most people just don't want to talk about it. It's shunned.

[redhead]

Oh and HIIIIII everyone sorry I'm late

[FootyFan26]

Why don’t we talk about the elephant in the room?

• Inexperience
• Awkward
• Worried about saying the wrong thing
• Worried about offending someone
• Seen negatively
• Might feel embarrassed
• Hiding or avoiding dealing with it
• Trying to look 'tough' because of stereotypes

[N1ghtW1ng]

Hey @redhead!

[Ben-RO]

Why don’t we talk about the elephant in the room?

That is a simple question that has a LOT of answers I think.

We know that some people experiencing some kinds of mental illness actually don't feel like talking about it or asking for help and that's actually a part of the illness. So I think that's a small part of why we don't talk about it. But there's a LOT more to it than that.

A much bigger part is that I don't think we feel like people will respond well if we start talking about it. There's still a lot of stigma and up until only a few decades ago we were really pretty crap at supporting people when they reached out for help. I think that makes it really scary to talk about. There's a lot more to it than that though! Looking forward to reading your answers